Bilawal asks Kashmiris to elect his party with thumping majority

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Friday asked the Kashmiris to hold the “selected puppet” government of Prime Minister Imran Khan accountable for the “sell-out of Kashmir” and return his party with a thumping majority in the upcoming elections to the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly.  

Speaking at two different events in Mirpur district in the first leg of his three-day tour to AJK to kick-start his party’s election campaign, he went on to allege that PM Khan’s government was also contemplating selling out the country's nuclear programme.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari who was accompanied by senior PPP leader Qamar Zaman Kaira started his tour from Dhan Galli village at the border of Punjab and AJK where he was received by party’s regional president Chaudhry Latif Akbar, leader of the opposition in AJK assembly Chaudhry Muhammad Yasin and scores of other PPP leaders and activists. 

From Dhaan Galli his rally arrived at Dadyal where he addressed a big gathering to canvass for Chaudhry Afsar Shahid, PPP’s candidate from LA-1, Mirpur-I. En-route the neighbouring Kotli district, Mr Bhutto-Zardari addressed another gathering at Plaak village in LA-2, Mirpur-II from where Chaudhry Qasim Majeed, son of former AJK premier Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, has been given party ticket.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari maintained that each AJK visit filled him with joy “because there was not just a political bondage between the PPP and the people of Kashmir but also a historical bondage."

“We are with each other for three generations and will remain so for [many more] generations,” he said.   

He claimed that Kashmiris had written history by siding with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Shaheed Benazir Bhutto. Continuing, he said, when they sided with President Asif Ali Zardari, they had historical development in AJK.

“Now the youth in Azad Kashmir and occupied Kashmir are going to begin a new journey,” he said and added: “If in occupied Kashmir they are doing jihad against Modi, Hindutva and barbarity of the RSS; here […] in AJK the youth as well as the elderly are doing a jihad against dearness and unemployment by Imran Khan.” 

“If they are facing the bullets and blasts by Modi here you are experiencing costliness; you cannot buy medicines and get treated, you cannot find jobs for yourselves. You too are launching your jihad and struggle against this cruel puppet government.”

Referring to two famous quotes of his grandfather and mother about Kashmir and Kashmiris, he regretted that in response to Modi government’s Aug 5, 2019 move, Prime Minister Imran Khan had expressed helplessness by saying what could he do. 

“He [PM Khan] did not have even an answer to this historic cruelty, villainy and injustice by Modi.” 

Mr Bhutto-Zardari said while Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had vowed to fight for 1000 years for Kashmir, PM Khan announced to hold protest demonstrations along the roads on each Friday. 

“However, he could not make people stand for you even for one week. When Zulfikar Ali would give a strike call, not just AJK the whole of occupied Kashmir would shut down. But what Imran Khan did was just to rename Kashmir Highway as Srinagar Highway.” 

The PPP chairman asked the gathering to hold “the most incompetent prime minister” accountable and answerable for the injustice he had done to AJK, for the dearness and the unemployment as well as what he had done with regard to occupied Kashmir.

 “You have to make it loud and clear to the world that whatever this puppet says, we will never compromise the rights of Kashmiris like that of Imran Khan.” 

Speaking of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto, he said the persons who respectively gave the gift of nuclear and missile technologies to the nation were declared as ‘security risk.’

“But this puppet has not only sold out Kashmir, he is now also out to sell out the nuclear programme… The people of [Azad] Kashmir will reject this puppet in elections and declare him as a security risk,” he said. 

He asked people to support him the way they had supported Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto and drive out PTI from AJK to pave the way for PPP's victory  with a thumping majority.

“First we will elect our prime minister in Azad Kashmir and then we will elect a prime minister in Pakistan – a prime minister who will not sell out Kashmir and who will resolve all of your issues,” he said. 

Later the PPP chairman drove to Kotli district where he offered condolences to the family of party’s stalwart Muhammad Matloob Inqilabi in Dhanna village in LA 13, Kotli-VI. Mr Inqilabi had died in November last year due to a head injury and PPP has fielded his son Waleed Inqilabi from this constituency. 

Mr Bhutto-Zardari is scheduled to address a big public meeting in Kotli city on Saturday. 

Tariq Naqash

'India's APC on Kashmir a ploy to deflect world attention from the real issue'

As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosts an ‘all party conference’ of pro-India Kashmiri leaders in New Delhi on Thursday, the two top public office holders in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) have termed the event nothing more than a ploy to hoodwink the international community on Kashmir and deflect its attention from the war crimes perpetrated by the occupation forces with impunity particularly after Aug 5, 2019. 

In their separate reactions, President Sardar Masood Khan and Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider declared in unequivocal terms that the invitees of the conference did not represent the Kashmiri nation and instead they had always compromised the fundamental rights, mainly the right to freedom, of Kashmiris for their lust for power. 

“Farooq Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti belong to the families which have been shamelessly making compromises on the rights of the people of Jammu and Kashmir apart from very proudly shouting the slogans of Jay Hind and Banday Matram,” maintained AJK President Khan in a statement. 

“Those speaking on behalf of the Kashmiris at the so-called conference will be labeled as treacherous fifth columnists,” he added. 

Khan noted that had Modi had been sincere in the consultative process on Kashmir he would have invited incarcerated Hurriyat leaders to take part in it. 

In fact, people like Farooq Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti had played the role of facilitators in consolidating India’s illegal occupation due to their lust of power and could never plead the case of Kashmir at any forum as per the wishes of the Kashmiri people, he said. 

About speculations that the Indian prime minister intended to restore the pre-Aug 5, 2019 status of occupied Kashmir, the AJK president pointed out that Articles 370 and 35-A of Indian Constitution were an arrangement between the two states which had been sabotaged by India.

“And now when occupied Kashmir has been virtually made an administrative unit of the Union of India, what will be the legitimacy of any agreement, if concluded,” he questioned.

 Khan cautioned Pakistan and the people of Jammu and Kashmir to stay away from India’s cleverly orchestrated tactics. 

“Any political or diplomatic process should be based on sincerity and through the mediation of a third party. In our opinion, the United Nations can be a better mediator for this process,” he said. 

In a brief statement, Prime Minister Haider said the invitees of the conference were India’s collaborators throughout the occupation and its partners in crime. 

“Over and over again, they have been humiliated and disgraced, used like tissue papers and made poodles of the oppressive regime in New Delhi; nevertheless they have always made themselves available for India's interests without an iota of shame,” he said of the pro-India Kashmiri leaders. 

Haider said the all-party conference was a devious stratagem of the fascist Modi government to divert international attention from the real issue but it would fail to achieve the preconceived results, mainly because occupied Kashmir was not under the sway of pro-India leadership, particularly after 1989. 

He expressed the hope that Islamabad would shortly invite all notable Kashmiri leaders, including those representing the All Parties Hurriyat Conference on this side of the divide, to make it clear to the world community that the genuine representatives of the masses were pro-freedom Kashmiri leaders and not those who had supported India's unlawful occupation of Jammu and Kashmir. 

"The world must know that no cosmetic measures on Kashmir will help India or Pakistan witness any durable positive development... Until and unless this [Kashmir] issue is resolved in accordance with the wishes of Kashmiri people, fears of a devastating nuclear war will continue to grip this region."

Tariq Naqash

 

 

PPP chides PML-N, PTI for their 'abysmal performance'

The Azad Jammu and Kashmir chapter of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has censured Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) governments in Islamabad and Muzaffarabad, respectively, for their “utter failure to come up to the expectations 

"Unfortunately, both Prime Minister Imran Khan and Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider miserably failed to play the role that the freedom seeking Kashmiris had expected from them in the wake of India’s Aug 5, 2019 move… I am afraid they will play a dangerous game with regard to the Kashmir issue,” alleged PPP regional president Chaudhry Latif Akbar at a crowded press conference at his residence on Wednesday.  

He was flanked by Sardar Mubarak Haider and Shaukat Javed Mir, party’s candidates respectively from Muzaffarabad city and Leepa valley. 

According to Akbar, both governments had full realization that they could not win the upcoming AJK polls which was why they had been doling out public money to get the desired results.

"In 2016, the PML-N contested elections on the basis of tribes and deep pockets using funds of the AJK Council and in 2021 it’s giving schemes worth Rs 25 million in each constituency through the local government department,” he alleged.

After the announcement of the election schedule, such acts amount to a serious breach of the code of conduct and are thus unlawful, he said.  

Following in the PML-N’s footsteps, Akbar alleged, the PTI government had also been contemplating spending around Rs 5 billion in AJK in its desperate efforts to win the forthcoming polls.

"Instead of conquering AJK, the PTI government should thwart India’s nefarious designs to further divide the occupied territory." 

 Akbar asserted that since the people had endured “abysmal performance of the incompetent PML-N and PTI governments" in AJK and Pakistan, nothing was going to go in their favour in the polls.

“In fact it's the PPP that will celebrate victory on July 25,” he vowed.

Akbar who could not return in the 2016 polls, admitted that the performance of the parliamentary opposition, of which the PPP was a major component, was not up to the mark over the past five years.

 “Whether it was to highlight the issues of public interest or to take the [PML-N] government to task for unchecked favoritism and other corrupt practices, they did not fulfill their responsibilities to the satisfaction of the masses,” he said of the combined opposition in the assembly.  

He made it clear that the PPP would not be part of any electoral alliance.

"We will shortly unveil our election manifesto that lays main emphasis among other things on success of the heroic struggle across the divide as well as improvement of service delivery in health, education and other sectors," he told a questioner. 

Finding faults with the AJK Election Commission, he asked the constitutional body to take all contesting parties on board with regard to the polling schemes. 

The commission should also withdraw its order to the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) “to stop issuing new identity cards to eligible persons, he said.  

Akbar said army personnel should be deployed outside polling stations to maintain law and order but should have no concern with the proceedings inside the stations. 

Of an all-party conference to be hosted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, the PPP leader said that pro India leaders had no right to represent IIOJK because the true representative of the occupied territory was the APHC.

Tariq Naqash

Row over withholding tax ratio: AJK LA prorogues session without presentation of 2021-22 budget

The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Legislative Assembly session convened on Wednesday for the presentation of 2021-22 budget was prorogued by the chair sine die without going by its agenda as a mark of protest against a bar in the federal budget on the rate of withholding tax for the independent power producers (IPPs) located in the AJK territory. 

The session was scheduled to commence at about 11am and weighty budget books had also been placed on the desks of lawmakers. However, it started at about 3pm due to an unusually long cabinet meeting on this issue. 

Earlier, after the first long sitting of the cabinet at Block 4 of the civil secretariat, Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider and his ministers held another round of discussions at the PM House before finally making it to the assembly building. 

The assembly session was attended by just 16 legislators, excluding the speaker, and only one of them was from the opposition.

In what appeared to be an already agreed strategy, Speaker Shah Ghulam Qadir gave the floor to the prime minister before letting finance minister Dr Najeeb Naqi to deliver his budget speech. 

Voicing serious concerns and reservations about some steps by the PTI led central government, PM Haider informed the house that there had been an ‘un-written understanding’ between the governments of AJK and Pakistan that all taxes imposed in Pakistan would be replicated in AJK, after a formal approval from the AJK assembly. 

However, he added, an “anomaly” had been observed in the federal budget wherein the withholding tax on value of offshore supply contract of the IPPs located wholly or partially in the AJK territory had been fixed at 1% as against 1.4% in Pakistan. 

He wondered how the central government could isolate AJK or take a decision that did not fall in its competence. 

“Already our financial resources are scant and such a decision whereby they intend to cap the ratio of taxes to be collected by us will further multiply our fiscal needs,” he said, making it clear that the 1% cap was unacceptable to the AJK government. 

He also regretted that the auction of additional spectrum in AJK had been once again put off till next year, in what was also a blow to the territory's economy. 

Haider said AJK had regained its financial and administrative powers after a long and tiring struggle through an amendment in the Constitution. 

“I know they want to enforce a new constitutional arrangement in Azad Kashmir for which they are out to obtain a two thirds majority in the upcoming polls. We also know that meetings [to this effect] are held in the office of the Prime Minister of Pakistan and chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan,” he alleged. 

Haider went on to say that there were reports that the government of Pakistan planned to dole out Rs 50 million to each PTI candidate for development and warned against “breaking the legs of the people visiting AJK for this purpose.” 

He said he had also made it clear to a federal minister that the central government could not directly spend any amount of money in AJK. 

Between the lines, Haider also took umbrage at the AJK Election Commission (EC), which had declared last week that the [AJK] prime minister and ministers could not take part in election campaigns in official vehicles and had also recently stopped the tendering process of different schemes.

“Let it be clear that there is no concept of interim government in Azad Kashmir. The institution which has to conduct free and fair elections has been invested with these powers by this very house,” he said of the EC and added: “Neither can any institution be superior to the government nor can any institution take over the powers of the government.” 

 Sending a “loud and clear” message to the civil bureaucracy and all other AJK institutions that the AJK government would not let it happen, he said: “We do not want confrontation but at the same time we will not allow maneuverings to mar transparency and impartiality of elections. Our tolerance should not be misconstrued as our weakness.”  

Otherwise, he warned, he might be compelled to utter such a thing that could be exploited by the enemy [India].

Asking all political parties not to compromise the integrity and prestige of AJK, he said he would welcome the government which would come to power through the power of vote.

But no party would be able to scale up the ladder to power with clutches of the central government, he added. 

Haider claimed that as prime minister of Pakistan Mian Nawaz Sharif had not held any meeting on AJK polls in his office or even his private residences. 

Contrarily, he alleged, PM Khan had held two meetings on AJK polls, "directing people and institutions under him that he wanted to see the PTI government in AJK at all costs." 

“While you advocate the right to self determination of the Kashmiris, you are not ready to give us the limited right of five years here… If you do this, what will be the difference between you and those across the divide,” he said in a reference to Indian leaders. 

The AJK premier also made it clear that AJK would not become a province. 

“Yes it will become a province when the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir will decide so through vote.”

Wrapping up his speech, he asked the chair to adjourn the session sine die until a decision on the finance bill was made. 

Though opposition MLA Malick Nawaz mildly opposed the idea but after reiteration by the prime minister of his arguments, he did not press for his demand. 

After seeking opinion from law minister Farooq Ahmed Tahir, the chair read the presidential order regarding sine die prorogation of the session.

Tariq Naqash

The Miseries of Divide

   

With abundant water in its channel and varied alpine and subalpine trees on both sides, a drive through an appreciably improved artery along the icy Neelum River zigzagging through the picturesque Neelum valley is a real feast in these times when the downstream areas are witnessing hot and humid weather. 

This is what one can see during the drive with naked eyes. The hidden attraction, particularly for the conservationists, is the valley's rich flora and fauna, or the wildlife, and how they survive amid multiple threats, such as ceasefire violations along the Line of Control (LoC), a barbed fence restricting their free movement as well as poaching. 

Beyond Lawat lies Dawarian village, at a distance of 106 kilometres from Muzaffarabad. This village may have been earlier famous for its cherries and the gateway to a famous shrine in Jhaag Sharif, but for about a year or so it has gained fame for being home to two orphaned black bear cubs being kept at a trout fish hatchery there. 

Incidentally, this past weekend, I was able to make it to Dawarian. An under construction link road stemming from the main artery runs past the fenced compound housing the hatchery, hardly 500 metres ahead. I enter the compound only to be greeted by the cheerful staff of the AJK wildlife and fisheries department, both in civvies and uniform, engaged with the cubs. 

Muhammad Ashraf Raza, one of the assistant game wardens in the area, points to the lofty mountains across the Neelum River - which is overlooked by his office - and tells me the cubs were brought from the highest of these peaks in the closest proximity of the heavily militarized LoC on April 30 last year after being spotted by some nomads in their flock.  

According to the IUCN Red Book, Asiatic black bear falls in the category of ‘threatened species’ as poachers kill it for its fat, gallbladder, bile and genital organs and hide. The mother-bear never leaves its cubs alone even for a short while. Sighting of the newborns without mother along the LoC meant the she-bear had fallen prey to some landmine or shelling across the divide, marked by a 12 feet high electric fence, explains Raza.  

“We started to raise them like members of our family and one of our senior officers named the duo as Sharda (female) and Narda (male) after two famous peaks of the area," he tells.

Every day at about 7am, the uniformed staffers unlock the duo's cage to feed them and let them wander on the compound.

"If we are late in opening the cage or serving them food, the cubs do not hide their anger, says Arif Kazmi, one of the wildlife guards, with whom the cubs love to frolic.

The food being offered to them these days comprises 25 rotis of wheat and some other items “in keeping with the wildlife department's meagre fiscal resources” that hardly allow them to provide all items suggested by a team of Islamabad Wildlife Management Board during a recent visit. 

But, happy with whatever they get to eat, the cubs play with their caretakers, move around the office building, and climb trees on the compound. Sometimes to the befuddlement of their caretakers they rush towards the ponds or climb onto a tin-roof structure wherein rainbow trout and its troutlets are cultured, respectively, for farmers.

“When we lose their sight for a while this is what we face,'' Kazmi says, pointing to the cubs having entered the troutlets' shelter from a narrow opening at the top and his colleagues beating the roof with sticks to force the duo to scale down. 

“It takes a hell lot of effort to bring them down. Since we can’t beat them we try to create noise so that they descend and settle down in their abode.”

The noise, particularly that of the vehicles, makes the duo scary. If they are out of their cage and a vehicle moves past the compound, they rush towards the other side, bringing smiles to the onlookers for whom bear cubs are an otherwise rare sight and thus a great source of entertainment.

Young children while on their way back home from school or bazaar do not miss dropping into the compound to amuse themselves. 

“Initially we were scared of them. But the fear has dwindled. Now we love to watch them closely and pat them,” 8th grade student Muzammil Chaudhry tells me while he and some other kids play and pat the cubs.

As young boys directly engage themselves with the cubs, many adults watch them from behind the fence on the adjacent link road. 

However, what is now worrying the staff is the gradual change in the behavior of the nearly 14 months old omnivores, as at times the duo becomes aggressive, particularly the female cub.  

This is what necessitates their relocation to their natural habitat in the forests or in some protected area at the earliest, says Naeem Iftikhar Dar, Director of the AJK wildlife and fisheries department.  

“These cubs are too much acclimatized to human beings. Suppose we release them into thick forests and there, on seeing any human they may go close to him out of their previous attachment to the humans,” he tells me.  

“And the scary human might hurt or kill them in self defence.” 

“The second option is to build a big enclosure in some protected area, where they should be kept for a certain period with no contact with the humans. After sometime an opening should be created in the enclosure from where they can ‘escape’ to the wilderness,” adds Dar. 

But that’s not the only issue that these cubs have brought into the spotlight, at least once again. 

Javed Ayub, who has long headed this department and now happens to be its administrative secretary, traces the link between the plight of the wildlife, cubs being an example, and the deep rooted Kashmir conflict.

“So much has been said and written about the human miseries but little does the world know that our flora and fauna have also terribly suffered due to the tensions at the LoC and particularly because of the electric fence built by India in 2004,” he tells me in his office in Muzaffarabad.

“While we can relocate the affected human populations, we cannot evacuate our wildlife whenever there is exchange of shelling across the LoC.” 

According to him, since the terrestrial animals do not remain restricted to a particular area and keep on moving from one location to the other for grazing, predating, breeding and rearing purposes the fence stands in the way of their free movement.

Even though the human settlements in AJK are located close to the LoC as compared to the India held side, the wildlife movement across the divide had however always been a two-way process before the fence was erected, he notes.

Ayub points out that due to less human intervention close to the LoC in India held side, terrestrial animals would find food there in abundance particularly in summers. And as the fence has restricted their cross LoC movement, the carnivores are sometimes compelled to descend onto the human population on our side and get hurt or killed. 

In winters, when snow falls as high as 15-20 feet in the high altitude areas where the fence runs through, some animals move to the opposite side in search of food or sanctum and when the snow melts beneath the fence they do not find a way back to their original habitat, he says.

According to Ayub, Kashmir Stag would be cited from Dawarian to upstream Haanthi Nullah before the construction of the fence. But now its prevalence in AJK is no more, he laments.  

POACHING - MORE PERILUOUS THAN HUNTING  

Last month, a black bear cub, namely Dabbu, was rescued from Lahore after allegedly having been transported from the Neelum valley. 

However, both Ayub and Dar deny this assertion outright. 

“There is no official or unofficial confirmation of the cub's transportation from Neelum. There are many organised groups in Pakistan [involved in illicit animal trade] and they have used the name of our area to divert attention from the actual source,” asserts Ayub.

However he admits that his department faces acute shortage of trained technical staff and fiscal resources to man at least 11 entry-exit points between AJK and Pakistan and take care of all 21 protected areas, including seven national parks, in a territory spread over 13297 sq kilometres.

He agrees that poaching poses more serious threat to the wildlife than hunting, because trading of animals or their parts for fiscal gains means their imminent genocide. However, he regrets that unlike the past, international wildlife conservation organisations are not extending considerable cooperation to his department in this regard.

“Alone, we cannot cope with this uphill task… We need global support.” 

Back in the Dawarian trout hatchery, Kazmi says over the past 14 or so months "Sharda and Narda" have become part of their lives.

“But sooner or later we will have to relocate them to a proper habitat… Surely we will miss them.” 

Tariq Naqash

AJK to go to polls on July 25

 

General elections to the Legislative Assembly of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) will be held on  July 25, which happens to be a Sunday and either the third or the fourth day of Eidul Azha, region's Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Justice retired Abdul Rashid Sulehria, announced on Thursday. 

Accompanied by Raja Farooq Niaz and Farhat Ali Mir, Senior Member and Member, respectively, of the Election Commission (EC), he asserted at a crowded press conference held in the Committee Room of New Civil Secretariat Muzaffarabad that his institution would leave no stone unturned to conduct the election process in a free, fair and impartial manner. 

"This should also lay to rest speculations or rumours that elections are being or will be delayed for any reason," the CEC said. 

Of the 45 direct seats of the Legislative Assembly, 33 are located in the AJK territory with over 2.817 million registered voters, including 1.297 million women, and 12 are located in Pakistan with 430456 registered voters, including 170931 women, he said.

The commission would try its best to seek the army's assistance to ensure law and order during elections. However, in case the army personnel are not available, civilian armed forces and paramilitary troops would be called for the purpose in addition to the AJK police personnel, responded Mr Niaz to a questioner.

Of elections in the 12 constituencies in Pakistan, he informed that the officers of the Election Commission of Pakistan would be placed at the disposal of the ECAJK to be appointed as District Returning Officers (DROs) and Returning Officers (ROs).

The AJK government and the EC would make requests to the provincial governments concerned to ensure security of polling stations and staff on the polling day, Mr Niaz added.

The CEC declared that after the announcement of the schedule the government could not make any fresh appointments or transfers or announce or execute new development schemes. 

However, in unavoidable cases it will have to seek prior permission from the EC, he said. 

When the CEC was asked if this ban also applied to ongoing regularization of scores of ad-hoc, temporary and contractual employees that the government had ordered to complete within two weeks under a recently passed controversial law, he replied in the affirmative. 

When another reporter repeated a similar question for the sake of clarity, Mr Niaz reiterated that the EC would not allow any appointment. 

“We hope the government will respect this ban and stop appointments,” the EC senior member said. 

SCHEDULE

According to the schedule, nomination papers will be filed by the candidates before the ROs on or before June 21 till 4pm. But before filing their papers, the candidates will be required to submit details of their moveable and immoveable assets and income and obtain its receipt from the commission. 

Scrutiny of nominations will be conducted on the following day from 8am onward and lists of validly nominated candidates will be published by the ROs the same evening.

Aggrieved persons could file appeals against the acceptance or rejection of nomination papers by the ROs before the ECAJK by 2pm on June 27 and the hearings of appeals will be held on June 28-29 while decisions will be announced on June 30 and July 1.

Candidates could withdraw their nominations by July 2, and lists of contesting candidates will be published on the following day. 

Election symbols to the parties and candidates will be allotted on July 4 before 2pm and the final list of contesting candidates with election symbols will be published on the same day while polling will be held on July 25 from 8am to 5pm.

The CEC also unveiled a 16 page ‘code of conduct’ for the political parties, candidates and their polling agents, envisaging strict adherence to the legal and constitutional requirements and other guidelines. 

Reading out some important points, Mr Sulehria made it clear that no candidate, including the AJK premier, speaker, deputy speaker and ministers, would be allowed to use official resources, particularly official vehicles, for election campaign or else they could be disqualified from contesting elections and the vehicle concerned would be confiscated.

This condition would also apply to the visiting government functionaries from Pakistan, including the prime minister of Pakistan, federal ministers, advisers and special assistants, he declared.

When a reporter drew the CEC's attention towards the fact that each of the former AJK presidents and prime ministers was entitled to an official vehicle and 400 litres fuel or its cost per month, he and members “expressed the hope” that these leaders would not use the same for electioneering.

In view of the Covid-19 situation, big public gatherings and processions had also been banned. However, each candidate could hold one public meeting with prior approval of date, time and place from the deputy commissioner concerned as well as with strict adherence to the SOPs, the CEC said.  

He said expenditures by the candidates on electioneering should not exceed Rs 5 million each, including those expenses not directly made by them but by their political party or agents on their campaign. 

There would be a complete ban on display of large hoardings, billboards and panaflex posters as well as wall chalking, the CEC said, warning that violations would be taken as an unlawful activity.  

The CEC expressed the hope that all political parties would avoid personal attacks or any such thing that ran the risk of vitiating the peaceful atmosphere of the region. 

When a reporter asked that since senior member Mr Niaz was closely related to Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider and he had lately given premature retirement to Mr Mir for his present assignment, how could be guaranteed that they would not show a tilt towards the ruling PML-N, the CEC maintained that both were "men of above board integrity and credibility." 

On this, a visibly irked Mr Mir stated that theirs were constitutionally protected positions and they would not violate their oath. 

"Rest assured we will do whatever the law and Constitution demands from us," he said. 

He urged the media to support and facilitate ECAJK in discharge of its duties.

Tariq Naqash

Students, civil society activists up in arms about 'controversial' regulation law

  

Hundreds of students and other civil society activists took to a main thoroughfare here on Wednesday to voice their anger against a recently enacted piece of law regularizing a hitherto unspecified number of ad-hoc, contractual and temporary government employees from BS-1 to BS-18.  

The demonstrators who included around 150 women were holding banners and placards inscribed with different slogans, many written with a tinge of sarcasm directed at Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider and his government, initially assembled at an open space along the bustling Bank Road where through they later paraded up to the press club. 

“Hum nahi maantay, zulm k ye zaabtay (We will not bow to the cruel regulations),” was the frequently raised chant in addition to “Down with the incompetent government and the assembly” by the demonstrators. 

Some of the women had also brought their minor kids to the protest. 

On May 31, the AJK Legislative Assembly had got enacted the AJK Regulation of the Service of Certain Categories of Contractual, Ad-hoc or Temporary Government Employment (Terms and Conditions) Act, 2021 at the strength of its majority. 

The opposition Peoples Party (PPP), one of whose four lawmakers is also occupying the office of the Leader of the Opposition in the AJK Assembly, as well as Muslim Conference (MC), another constituent of the combined opposition, avoided to attend the session allegedly to give a walk over to the government. 

However, the only three opposition members in attendance - Sardar Hassan Ibrahim of Jammu Kashmir Peoples Party (JKPP) and Abdul Majid Khan and Deevan Ghulam Mohiuddin of the PTI, objected to the passage of the “controversial” bill and called for its withdrawal.

On seeing no signs of acceptance of their demand, they had staged a walkout from the house. 

Two members of Jamaat-e-Islami, one of whom had earlier expressed reservations about the bill, however did not join the trio, allowing the government to claim that the bill had been passed unanimously. 

Earlier, Mr Ibrahim had also written a strongly worded dissenting note on the bill as one of the two members of the concerned select committee. 

The bill, which got assent from the President on Wednesday, is alleged to be reminiscent of an identical piece of legislation by Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan led MC government in 1992 whereby around 480 persons were inducted as gazetted officers without any competitive exams. The law was later struck down by the AJK courts. 

In their speeches outside the press club, many demonstrators also referred to the 1992 legislation and said the new law was bound to meet the same fate. 

“This is a cruel and unjust piece of legislation whereby the government has regularized those who had either failed in previous competitive exams or had been evading it after recruitment on the basis of their political connections,” maintained Urooj Younas, a student. 

“Allah willing, we will collectively challenge and get it repealed from the superior courts,” she vowed. 

Faisal Khokhar, another student, said it was ironic that this law had been enacted by PM Haider despite the fact he had been blowing his own trumpet about the introduction of NTS by his government for recruitment of primary and junior teachers.  

Shahid Awan, one of the organisers, said civil society would fully support students in their legitimate struggle for annulment of the 'discriminatory law.'

The social media was also replete with comments pouring scorn on the move. 

"The hue and cry raised by the PML-N government over a mere suggestion by NCOC to postpone the upcoming AJK polls in view of Covid-19 pandemic was in fact aimed at diverting attention from the worst ever slaughter of fundamental human rights, justice and merit” on its part in collusion with the PPP,” wrote Raja Amjad Ali Khan, a renowned lawyer and human rights activist, in a social media post.  

Tariq Naqash